As difficult as it may be to believe, there was a time when Britain was not obsessed with food. Rewind to 1984 and this phenomenon was so new that in The Official Foodie Handbook journalists Ann Barr and Paul Levy were poking gentle fun at (as Levy later wrote in the Guardian) a new breed of “perfectly sane people” who “had suddenly become obsessed with every aspect of food”.

The book was not alone in identifying the foodie. By 1980, the New York magazine restaurant critic, Gael Greene, was observing the behaviour of “serious foodies”, too. But Barr and Levy, then working at Harper’s & Queen magazine, certainly popularised this depiction of ardent hobbyists who bonded over artisan cheese, travelled widely to eat, dug for organic self-sufficiency or studied food’s interaction with art and literature.

Back then, this emerging subculture seemed ripe for satire. “Be modern, worship food,” ran the book’s arch sub-head. But 40 years later, Britain is a very different place. Taking a deep interest in what you eat is no longer eccentric. From supermarket aisle to smartphone screen, food is a ubiquitous leisure and entertainment product, a common language, a social glue. In 2023, 65% of 16- to 24-year-olds told analysts Mintel they identify as foodies. That once esoteric label is now more mainstream.

Naturally, modern foodies exist on a spectrum. There are casual foodies and – like stage-front gig-goers or fanatical football fans – there are dedicated pleasure-seekers whose determination to, literally, suck the marrow from life goes way beyond eating in hip restaurants (although, they have been there, too). You know the type. Of course you do. You are reading the Observer’s food pages. But how will this all look in 2025? Where, how and what will Britain’s foodies be eating?

Take breakfast seriously
“No mealtimes wasted” is an implicit foodie mantra. These people created a whole new time slot, brunch, in order to stretch breakfast’s creative possibilities. Now, in the era of lavishly topped sourdough, congee or Turkish eggs, how we breakfast at home is transformed. Toast and cereal will not cut it.

Forego the long, boozy lunch …
I mean, we would all love to; we would be honouring tradition. But, in 2025, who has the time?

… and eat out earlier, midweek
Half-past-six is the new 8.30pm, observes the restaurateur David Carter, founder of London’s Smokestak and Oma: “Youth lifestyles are different. Early-morning running clubs are taking over from nightclubs. So the appeal for earlier dining and bedtime is more prominent.”

The foodie font of all knowledge
In a restaurant, are you the person the table looks to to explain what roscoff (onion), “ex-dairy” (beef), dulse (seaweed), and chawanmushi (savoury egg custard) are? Be cool about it. You may already know Waitrose is tipping toum (a Lebanese garlic sauce), and pilpelchuma (a Libyan chilli paste), for 2025 but no one likes a bore. Wear your insider knowledge lightly.

Will travel for dinner
San Sebastián is still on the bucket list, while new venues (Briar, the relocated Osip) have given boho Bruton fresh energy, and buoyed by a wave of London restaurant openings Greece is attracting renewed attention – call it the Oma effect.
Globe-trotting professional trends watcher Jules Pearson, who develops bar and restaurant concepts for hospitality company Ennismore, still finds Los Angeles and its endless creative mutations “hugely exciting”, citing “Pijja Palace, a sort of crossover Italian-Indian-American sports bar.” She also highlights Bangkok, particularly the hip bar-kitchen Chenin and supper club-style Haawm as emblematic of its own emerging, fertile scene. “You have incredible young chefs mixing things up in a city that was previously more about street food or fine dining,” she says.

We’ll always have Paris
A decade or so ago, British food finally threw off the then, arguably, stifling dominance of old-fashioned French cuisine. “In 2015, the [foodie] map of Europe consisted of Italy and Spain,” says Bocca di Lupo’s chef-owner Jacob Kenedy. But recent, well-received Francophile openings – London’s Café Francois, Henri and Josephine Bouchon, or Bavette in Leeds – suggest a more mature, self-confident Britain, which, says Kenedy, “recognises French cooking as valid and delicious”. Certainly in its relaxed, rustic bistro mode. Rillettes de canard and soupe à l’oignon are back on menus and, for a taste at source, Marseille is trending as the new cool city break – this year’s Naples, Berlin or Lisbon.

Join the queue
Some people refuse to. But if you want to eat exciting things at TikTok-famous spots (London’s hand-pulled Noodle Inn), or sample cult hits (Soho smash burger joint Supernova) or exceptional baked goods (Edinburgh’s Lannan Bakery) you may have to get in line.
Writing for Good Food magazine recently, Helen Salter identified the artisan bakery queue as its own worth-the-wait subset. That resonates. Good bakeries, offering a rare slice of sub-£5 affordable luxury, unite the foodie tribes. In a harsh world, excellent sourdough is a sound investment; that croissant or kouign-amann the treat you deserve.

Grab a seat at the pass
For keen cooks who want to learn while they eat, a romantic glamour persists around frenetic pro kitchens (helped by The Bear, Chef’s Table, Boiling Point). Diners want to be around the action.

Drizzle hot honey on everything
From sea-salt chocolates to feta-brine martinis, modern foodies enthusiastically cross the sweet, savoury and spicy streams. So-called “swicy”, sweet and spicy foods (common in Thai or Mexican cuisines) are belatedly breaking big in Britain with hot honey toppings on, for example, pizza, french toast or fried chicken. “Hot honey is the new salted caramel – the new normal,” asserts senior brand development chef Zoë Simons, in the 2024 Waitrose Food & Drink Report.

You’re full of beans
Peas, beans and dried pulses such as lentils and chickpeas are delicious, nutritious and very now. As foodies join what the Guardian dubbed “the leguminati”, expect fresh interest in British growers Hodmedod’s, and fancy imports such as cooked and preserved Spanish haricot, known as pochas.

Create restaurant flavours at home
From leather-apron-clad barbecue enthusiasts to studious amateurs ageing charcuterie or churning their own miso butter, a significant minority approach cooking with the seriousness of a chef. Cerebral cookbooks are displayed not for clout but for easy reference, alongside a sauce-spattered tablet. “The new-age foodie is a much better, more informed cook,” says James Chant, the self-taught ramen obsessive behind Cardiff’s Matsudai ramen shop. Reddit, YouTube and Instagram allow “people to focus on the culinary niche they desire”, and potentially, given time, to excel in it.

Wear your tart on your sleeve
Historically, no one other than employees wore restaurant-branded sweatshirts. But in 2025 food is fashion: a font of #chefcore looks, natural wine bar totes, hip pizzeria Ts and brewery hoodies. All worn as signals to your tribe.

Identify pansoti or tonnarelli at 50 paces
Foodies love marginal gains, tiny kernels of knowledge that maximise every meal. Pasta is the perfect example. We all love pasta but foodies are finicky, reading packets to find a bronze-die-cut brand for optimum sauce adherence, using egg pastas correctly (pappardelle = meaty ragu), and diligently practising mixing starchy pasta cooking water into black pepper and pecorino to make smoothly creamy cacio e pepe. Their version is, of course, benchmarked against London restaurants such as Pastaio, Bancone or Padella.

Cherry-pick
Pinterest is hailing “cherry coded” as a new aesthetic. Gourmet supplier Sous Chef is hyped for Amarena Fabbri’s cherries and Waitrose is talking up sour cherries in baking, as part of a “sour power” shift.

You’ve tried every variety of Lao Gan Ma …
And you love them all, but also have a firm fave (the kohlrabi, peanuts and tofu, obviously). Waitrose is predicting a further uptick in chilli oils this year, with keen cooks using punchy, jarred marinades, sauces and condiments as a shortcut to big flavours.

Don’t call it a dinner party
Feeding friends is still popular: 74% of 25- to 34-year-olds hosted in the last year, according to the Lakeland Trends Report 2024. Some throw elaborate dinner parties, displaying almost ironic levels of vintage crockery, formal place settings and “tablescaping” prowess. But, generally, the trend is towards relaxed evenings of slow-cooked, one-pot sharing dishes, grazing food (think a blow-out version of the “picky tea”) or homemade pizzas from the Ooni oven.

Up your gadget game
Something as simple as a swivel-head peeler that sits neatly in your hand, a pin-sharp grater or a truly flexible silicone spatula can make a cook’s life so much easier. In 2024, kitchen tool and gadget sales were up 26% at Lakeland’s stores, as home chefs hunt for that next ergonomic essential. This year’s big debate? Garlic press versus garlic rocker: to crush or roll?

Know your Topjaw from your Vittles
Modern foodies absorb gigabytes of Instagram and TikTok content. Viral stars such as Topjaw (tight, polished Q&As with chefs and celebs about favourite food spots; more than 730,000 Instagram followers) top a vast ecology of chefs, cooks, restaurant reviewers, food influencers, online magazines and legacy titles.
Browse clever. Filter. Jules Pearson advises exploring the feeds of select chefs or lower-profile foodies you “know have good taste, rather than traditional influencers”. Some chefs make this easy. For example, chef and broadcaster Ravneet Gill maintains a public Google map of restaurants she loves or is keen to visit.
But the true foodie doesn’t stop there. When not on YouTube (with US burger ace George Motz or at Hot Ones for spicy LOLs) they are bookmarking restaurant news sites (in London, Hot Dinners), reading broadsheet critics (“For me, far more valuable than food influencers on socials,” says Jamie Duffield, founder of forthcoming Liverpool restaurant Pilgrim), and signing up to an array of foodie newsletters.
In those proliferating Substacks (the politically charged Vittles being one standout example from the UK) or the many niche online and print titles available (Pellicle for beer, Noble Rot for wine, Pit for barbecue, Cake Zine for the world through a lens of sweet things), it is possible to explore, in great sociocultural detail, whatever makes you salivate. How else will you sustain witty conversation over dinner?

Smart people listen to their friends
So says Jacob Kenedy. Like many restaurateurs, he sees the enduring power of the word of mouth. How online influences where people actually eat is moot, but foodies still take guidebooks and awards seriously (Michelin for traditionalists, Roadbook for the cool kids), and value old-fashioned recommendations from trusted friends, colleagues or friends of friends. Being added to the right WhatsApp group, preferably including a chef or two with industry insight, can provide valuable intel.

Skills are another story
Foodies love producers’ back stories and details of smoking or fermenting techniques. According to Carol Adams, enterprise manager at Cardiff Farmers Markets: “There’s a growing appreciation for traditional methods, coupled with excitement for innovation.”

Appreciate expertise in all areas
A superlative £12 wood-fired pizza can be as celebrated as the most exquisite £175-a-head omakase menu, each one a perfect example of its type, albeit with substantially different bills.

Your phone is a passport to deliciousness
Armed with Instagram and Google Translate, it has never been easier to get the inside track on a city’s food scene and its must-eat items. Visitors gen up, says David Le Masurier, owner of Cardiff’s Pettigrew bakeries. “There’s absolutely no stigma in walking into a venue and holding up your phone to the staff with a screenshot of a product from TikTok or Reels.”

Plan your own version of The Trip
The chef-owner of Ambleside’s Michelin-starred Old Stamp House, Ryan Blackburn, has noticed a growing subset of diners visiting his restaurant as the Cumbrian leg of a UK gastro-tour: “They can be any age, international tourists or mid-20s Londoners. If you can afford it, it’s a lovely way to see the country.”

Swap sauvignon blanc for bacchus
Natural wine has been the norm for a while. You drink orange wines and look to eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia) for good value. But the next exciting “juice” may be closer to home. Using cooler climate, early ripening grapes, including sauvignon blanc-like bacchus or rondo for reds, British wine is flourishing beyond its reputation for champagne-style sparklers.

Get the kombuchas in
Mirroring wider trends, some foodies are moderating the booze. “Many drink less but better quality,” observes Kenedy, while no-low choices such as homemade kombuchas, creative mocktails and newer alcohol-free beers (tip: Cloudwater’s 0.5% Fresh) are credible options. There is no longer a huge flavour deficit in going dry.

But lean towards pleasure
Wellness is everywhere. But a defining characteristic of the foodie is that, when faced with a straight choice between a) flavour-intense self-indulgence and b) a salad, they get elbows deep in sizzling fat, sugar and happiness.
“Pastries, crisp pizza and massive boutique sandwiches seem pretty big on my [social media] feed, none of which particularly chimes with health and wellbeing,” says Jonny Heyes, owner of Manchester pizza brand Nell’s. “Bearded men gurning while pouring sauces and tearing things still garner lots of attention.”

Get into an (unnecessary) argument online
In 2025, you are only ever a couple of clicks away from a vitriolic, food-inspired debate. Some feel important, many trivial, but when conducted online almost all generate more heat than light as veganism, tipping etiquette or tasting menus become proxy battlefields in a culture war you can’t quite fathom. Invested in their hobby, foodies are instinctively opinionated. But overindulging in such (confected) outrage is rarely nourishing.